This is topic Scene missing... in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=001592

---

Posted by Eric Hooper (Member # 1730) on 12-27-2005, 12:42 PM:
 
So Monday night I took friends to the CineArts @ Santana Row in San Jose to see Brokeback Mountain. I’ve already seen the movie a number of times, and own a copy of the screenplay.

An entire scene (on page 12 of the “Story to Screenplay” book), where we see the boys hanging up strips of meat, cooking it, and eating it after they had just shot an elk for food was missing from the movie!!! This scene was in all of the other prints I have seen.

There was no evidence of any film splices or anything. So my question is, WTF? Did the lab leave out the scene by accident? Have there been other instances of this where scenes have been left out of certain prints of other films?

This is not cool because the customers who are seeing the film are not seeing the whole movie as intended. And as small of a scene as it sounds, in fact it’s actually a very important scene!
 

---

Posted by Dominic Espinosa (Member # 2122) on 12-27-2005, 04:23 PM:
 
I hope you informed the theater manager immediately so that he can ignore your concern and continue showing an incomplete print
It's interesting but a lot of theater managers don't take complaints like that seriously...
 

---

Posted by Jeff Eisentraut (Member # 1121) on 12-30-2005, 02:27 AM:
 
The Manager probably cut the scene out after he received several complaints about the way the two boys were handling their meat...
 

---

Posted by Dominic Espinosa (Member # 2122) on 12-30-2005, 06:51 AM:
 
That's total crap.
If you're going to watch a movie that is Rated R for sexuality, nudity, language and some violence about two gay men what the hell do you think you're going to see?
It's certainly not going to be all pretty dresses and dancing.
People who complain about the content of R rated movies when they should've known from the get-go what kind of content the movie was made of need to be taken deep into the woods...
 

---

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 12-30-2005, 07:26 AM:
 
I agree Dominic.
 

---

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 12-30-2005, 10:22 AM:
 
It seems to me the responsible thing would be to call the theatre and inquire. If you don't get a satisfactory response [I'm not sure what would be], then I expect Focus Features would really like to hear about this...

--jhawk
 

---

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 12-30-2005, 11:24 AM:
 
Was it replaced with a scene of them eating pudding?
 

---

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 12-30-2005, 01:47 PM:
 
Seriously, contact Focus Features. They are a small enough studio that I would expect for them to take a call like this very seriously and force the theater to replace the print like they should. If it turns out the theater cut footage out, not only should the theater have to pay for the entire print, but they should also lose ALL future bookings with that studio and be outed to the other studios for cutting footage. (If that is what happened.)
 

---

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 12-30-2005, 03:11 PM:
 
That's interesting. Since it's a small studio and a film with a staggered release schedule, is it possible that there are different cuts of the movie out there?
 

---

Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 12-30-2005, 11:11 PM:
 
Does this scene occur near a reel change?
 

---

Posted by Dominic Espinosa (Member # 2122) on 12-31-2005, 03:51 AM:
 

quote: Mark J. Marshall

---

Since it's a small studio and a film with a staggered release schedule, is it possible that there are different cuts of the movie out there?

---

quote: Mike Spaeth

---

Does this scene occur near a reel change?

---

quote: Mark J. Marshall

---

Since it's a small studio and a film with a staggered release schedule, is it possible that there are different cuts of the movie out there?

---

Were there printed changeover cues or were they scratched in? If they were scratched in, it very well may have been an early cut of the film. (It could also mean an EK print though.)
 

---

Posted by Kurt Zupin (Member # 2751) on 12-31-2005, 11:23 AM:
 
Hey Tom how about a spoilers warning there bud
 

---

Posted by Mathew Molloy (Member # 666) on 12-31-2005, 12:47 PM:
 
Tom, your projectionist left a little over two minutes on a reel and they didn't think that was odd? Does he/she often just start cutting as soon as the picture goes dark? Whether or not this person is training I'd suggest they be taught to go to the very end of the reel then work their way back to find the proper cutting point. (Teach them about changeover cues being a good reference point.) Two minutes or two seconds, even two frames is too much. Man, if my projectionist did that they'd be out of the booth for awhile.
 

---

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 12-31-2005, 12:53 PM:
 

quote: Tom Doyle

---

One of the projectionists cut off reel 1 a little early. He apparently thought it was the end, but it just had some dark nighttime scenes. He left a little over 2 minutes on the reel

---

Let's not use the word "projectionist" so flipantly. Anyone who could mess up so badly isn't a projectionist at all, but one of those "booth clowns" that seem to be multiplying like rabbits. This schmuck didn't notice 2 minutes of film still on the end of the reel?

But then my rule of management applies -- never fault the rude, incompetent, clue-less, lazy worker for any of those vices/mistakes -- it's management that should be held accountable. They should 1) have better training and motivational skills to teach/inspire workers to perform up to an acceptable standard (and have a defined, set standard in place) or 2) if the oaf cannot be trained and/or motivated, then management should have fired his sorry ass long before he could make such a gross mistake. Either way, they are the ones who've totally messed up and should be blamed, not the fool that they continue to allow working. Is this "projectionist" still working that booth? Bet he is. And if management doesn't take care of this personnel problem, then it's Higher Management that's to blame for allowing THOSE middle management imbeciles to still have a desk and a name tag on their blazers.

(Yah, I am starting off the new year in a pissy mood.) Just the same, Happy New Year eveyone.
 

---

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 12-31-2005, 12:54 PM:
 
Yet another reason as to why EVERY print should be properly screened before it is exhibited to the public. Mistakes do happen at either the theater or the lab sometimes.
 

---

Posted by Steve Scott (Member # 630) on 12-31-2005, 11:00 PM:
 
Yes, shit like this does happen, frequently. I've found several minutes of trailers spliced onto all sorts of ordered reel heads/tails. Hence, the emergence of the dreaded LFOA tails.
 

---

Posted by Eric Hooper (Member # 1730) on 01-01-2006, 03:14 PM:
 
Upon another viewing at another theatre there *IS* a reel change after the scene of them cooking and eating. So I can only assume as mentioned above, that R1 was cut too early. Sloppy work Century Theatres!
 

---

Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 01-01-2006, 03:49 PM:
 
Christ - are you out to beat Mike Olpin on repeat viewings of the same movie? How many viewings is it now? Have you seen it at every complex in metro SF yet? That's impressive ...
 

---

Posted by Tom Doyle (Member # 1474) on 01-02-2006, 04:19 AM:
 
Frank, I wouldn't say you are being 'pissy'. You described the situation very accurately.

I think you are exactly right in your management rules - in this case, I believe this theater is lacking in both training and proper motivation for the staff. The employee that made this error had been a much better worker when there was a good house manager in charge of operations.
 

---

Posted by Mike Croaro (Member # 3123) on 01-02-2006, 07:56 PM:
 
Hi Folks:

Local radio station should be notified. I'm sure the moring jocks would have a field day with this one!

Mike
 

---

Posted by Chris DeGour (Member # 3556) on 01-08-2006, 12:11 PM:
 
What exactly is missing in this scene? You say cleaning and hanging the meat. All I've seen is a scene where they

*Spoiler...sortof*
Shoot the elk, then basically cut to where they've got all of the strips already hung while they cook and eat. Nothing's said, its a 30s-1m scene at the very end of the first reel.

That what was missing or was there more?
 

---

Posted by Scott D. Neff (Member # 185) on 01-08-2006, 02:34 PM:
 
Chris -- how you describe the scene is exactly how I remember seeing it. I never saw them hanging up the meat, it just went from dead elk to roasting on the fire with the strips already hung up to dry.
 

---

Posted by Eric Hooper (Member # 1730) on 01-09-2006, 12:18 AM:
 
Well my bad then. It was exactly that scene at night with them eating and the close up of the meat hanging up that was missing.

How it played at SR was they shot the elk, then the reel changed to the next morning cooking on the campfire. The night scene (at the end of reel 1) had been cut.

After *not* seeing the scene, I tried to remember what was in it the best I could. I just knew that night scene was missing.
 

---

Posted by Scott D. Neff (Member # 185) on 01-10-2006, 03:16 AM:
 
That's happened to me before. But usually I just shrug it off. After all, sometimes I forget that I drove portions of my drive home from work -- all of the sudden I'm just near my house and I'm too happy to be there to worry about what might've happened during my brain numbing drive home.
 

---

Posted by Chris DeGour (Member # 3556) on 01-10-2006, 12:16 PM:
 
Ok, I just needed to know that before I said anything. Don't want to talk without knowing the full facts.

I work there. We noticed this post awhile ago (Yeah, we actually DO care ;p) and started working on seeing what the heck was going on.

We've had four prints move through the building, a Promo print, a damaged(replaced before you saw the film) print, and the two prints we were playing up to Friday. We confirmed that this scene was in both the promo and damaged prints. After reading that it was near the reelchange, I went up to check if maybe one of my booth folk had done something really stupid, but couldn't find any evidence of it.

So, I did what I had to, and sat through the first twenty min of each print to verify the scene's on there. I can tell you that it is, in fact on there, on both prints. There is no extra splicing done to perhaps show a person cutting then replacing the scene, so it's kind of a big mystery. I tell you right now, I haven't seen the movie, and probably won't, so my knowledge of the scene I mentioned above comes straight from watching it on these prints.

This isn't a company line or anything, in fact, I'm probably counter-policy talking anyway, lol, but I want to clear up confusion.
 

---

Posted by Eric Hooper (Member # 1730) on 01-10-2006, 02:33 PM:
 
Well, I know what I saw (or didn't see for that matter) and my friend I was with who had seen it before also noticed the scene missing too. This would have been the 12/26 7:10pm show.

The plot thickens...

However, you say you've screened the print(s) you're showing now (which you're only showing one print this week) and you say the scene is in there. So that is a good thing, and that's all that matters.

Eric
 

---

Posted by Brian Woods (Member # 3521) on 01-11-2006, 01:50 PM:
 
WOW, someone actually sat through a movie like 10 times? I could understand if it was porn, inwhich I have never seen the beginning or ending to any of the ones I have, nor do I know what the plot line is....I watched the movie and it was just "ok".....With Heath Ledger mumbling through the whole movie, I am surpised people weren't complaining about the sound, sounding muffled. The only other movie I can think of that "should" have had scenes missing is King Kong.....It would have been really funny if you mixed up King Kong with Brokeback...You would have Jake Gyllenhaal telling King Kong...."I wish I knew how to quit you." Now....that's a movie......
 

---

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 01-11-2006, 03:22 PM:
 
E!'s "The Soup" did Brokeback Kong
 

---

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-11-2006, 04:47 PM:
 
Well as far as I'm concerned, hats off to Chris above for taking the time to ensure his prints were complete.
 

---

Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 01-24-2006, 09:04 AM:
 
And it even happens at Sundance...

From the Los Angeles Times.

SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL
Satire turns mystery: Where's the sex scene?
A 12-second hookup scene starring Katie Holmes was missing from the satirical political comedy "Thank You for Smoking" at a weekend screening.
By John Horn
Times Staff Writer

January 24, 2006

PARK CITY, Utah -- The Sundance Film Festival is all about discovery, but what filmmaker Jason Reitman found out during a screening of "Thank You for Smoking" was unusual even by Sundance standards: The Katie Holmes sex scene in his movie had vanished.

During a packed screening of his satirical political comedy on Saturday night, Reitman and his team were stunned to see that the 12-second hookup between a journalist played by Holmes and a tobacco lobbyist played by Aaron Eckhart had been snipped from the print.

"We were sitting there in shock," Reitman said Monday. "And I turned to other people who had worked on the film, and we were completely confused. But the audience didn't seem to notice or care." When the film was shown the next morning, the encounter was still missing.

Reitman was quick to tell the audiences what they had missed. The news solicited loud moans, but Reitman stopped short of acting out the racy, but hardly explicit, scene.

A couple of theories seemed possible. Had an enterprising operative from US Weekly sneaked into the Eccles Center projection booth and stolen the footage for an exclusive? Did Tom Cruise exert all of his Hollywood muscle to preserve the honor of his pregnant girlfriend? Or maybe conservative Utah activists felt Sundance's decadence had sunk so low, they took matters into their own hands.

The correct answer was not quite as provocative.

Reitman says that when the "Thank You for Smoking" print was assembled in Los Angeles, the scene — which comes at the end of the second reel but is preceded by a brief blackout — had been accidentally sliced off when the reels were spliced together.

The film, which is adapted from Christopher Buckley's novel, premiered at last year's Toronto International Film Festival and was sold to Fox Searchlight in a bidding war and is showing as a Sundance premiere; the movie opens in theaters March 17.

Still, Reitman found some humor — and potential box-office business — in the deletion.

"There were a couple of thousand people who saw the film at Sundance without the Katie Holmes sex scene," Reitman said. "I implore all of them to now go back and see the movie with the Katie Holmes sex scene."
 

---

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 01-25-2006, 03:13 PM:
 
The missing scene from "Thank You For Smoking", is following a scene at a restaurant, there is a sharp cut to black. And then it fades-in on another short scene for 30 feet. The changeover cues are in this last scene.
 

---

Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 01-26-2006, 05:03 AM:
 
why the heck would the print have been assembled in l.a.?
 

---

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 02-01-2006, 05:22 AM:
 
Cause they think LA has the best people in the industry....wouldn't want some dufus in Utah assembling the print and accidently SLICING OFF A SCENE!

That's what you get for not paying attention to those change-over cues that you youngins say are antiquated and useless!
 

---

Posted by Jeremy Jorgenson (Member # 2989) on 02-01-2006, 06:47 AM:
 
Of course, you could also just wind it to the end of the reel... I mean, you don't have changeover marks at the head of the reel if there's a fade in.
 

---

Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 02-02-2006, 01:10 AM:
 

quote:

---

That's what you get for not paying attention to those change-over cues that you youngins say are antiquated and useless!

---

quote:

---

'Smoking' sex scene not cut by Cruise
9:59 AM March 1
Director Jason Reitman says a projection error - not Tom Cruise - was responsible for a missing Katie Holmes sex scene during a screening of her upcoming movie, Thank You for Smoking, at the Sundance Film Festival.
"I was sitting there in the theatre, the scene was missing, and my immediate thought was, 'Oh my God, Fox cut the scene out of my movie,"' Reitman told AP Radio in an interview.
"And then I realised, 'No, if it's at the end of the reel, the projector probably just accidentally cut it out."'
Some blamed Cruise, Holmes' fiance, speculating that he had pressured Reitman, son of Ghost Busters director Ivan Reitman, to remove the scene.
"That's a fun story. I'd read that story. The problem is that it's not true," Reitman said.
"The problem with 'projection error' is that it's the truth but it sounds like a lie. It sounds an awful lot like 'wardrobe malfunction."'
"Wardrobe malfunction" was the term used to explain what happened when Justin Timberlake revealed Janet Jackson's right breast during the halftime show of the 2004 Super Bowl.
Holmes, 27, and Cruise, 43, have been engaged since June. They announced her pregnancy in October.
Aaron Eckhart stars with Holmes, Maria Bello, William H Macy and Sam Elliott in Thank You for Smoking, adapted from Christopher Buckley's satiric novel about a tobacco-industry spin doctor.
Reitman said more people probably know about his movie because the scene went missing.
"The most likely reason that they would have heard of it is because of the sex scene," he said.
The filmmaker also said Holmes' sex scene is as tame as anything you'd see on the Disney Channel.
Thank You for Smoking - with the sex scene - is slated for limited release in the US on March 17

---

quote:

---

"And then I realised, 'No, if it's at the end of the reel, the projector probably just accidentally cut it out."'

---

I HATE it when the projectors cut parts of the movie out!!! Darn those freakin' Brenkerts!
 

---